Avenger Assembled

"I couldn't get ahold of the robot's landline," said Jack with a shake of his head. Though startled by Dead Head's rather abrupt arrival, he ran with that. "What matters is, all of us are the kind of people who don't play very well with others. For one reason or another," he added with a nod James' way. "This is a very nice city. But most of the people here, the other heroes? They don't really understand what it's like at midnight in the Fens, when the lights go out and there's nothing but monsters on either side of you. We can deal with that. We are those monsters. And we can keep the city safe, together. Just like we did during the Invasion."

"Um, actually, I'd rather not talk about it over the phone," said Mark apologetically. "It's kind of a family problem. But have you ever heard of the famous Jimmy and his Genie?" That one took Taylor a minute to parse out the pop name from the real name. Back in the 1940s, Wilhelm Kantor had successfully used certain artifacts stolen from ancient Arab cities in Libya to summon a prince of the efreeti, a nigh-omnipotent demigod who might have won the war for the Nazis in a month if said prince hadn't fallen into the hands of an utter naif from Freedom City with connections to the Liberty League. Mystics didn't like to talk about Jimmy Lucas and Azim-al-Aziz; that sort of relationship _wasn't supposed to happen._

"I need to talk to someone who lives in another dimension," Mark replied. "And I'm not supposed to use any of our equipment for that without authorization." He hesitated a bit, then said, "Have you ever heard of the City of Brass?" Of course Taylor had heard of the City of Brass, home of the efreeti, source of a Thousand and One Nights. The inhabitants were ludicrously powerful on Prime, though the version of the Pact they'd sworn with Simon Magus meant they were tightly bound by oaths and strictures when not on their own soil. Only a very few had been active on Prime in the 21st century, and those minor scions who had somehow slipped through the cracks.

"Hello, Ms. Chun?" asked Mark with his usual automatic deference to adult superheroes. "This is Mark Lucas. We spoke earlier in the month? I was wondering if you were available for a consultation." He sat in his desk chair, eyes casually wandering his roomates' posters. It looked much nicer over there without the Linkin Park album covers.

Gargoyle-boy had decided to start poking Jack's face, gentle pats with stubby fingers that somehow came to sharp points all the same. "Yeah, hi there," Jack shot a look at the phone, wincing a little at the idea of yet another person finding out where his super-secret headquarters was. "Yeah, that'll be all right. Ask him to pick up some air freshener or something too, would you?"

It was a gloomy day near the end of November when Mark decided to call Taylor Chun, having spent a long day at home in his father's study reading up on the City of Brass. Amid all the horrors and wonders of the demonic invasion earlier in the month, those taunting words from the demon in the graveyard had stuck with him. He knew perfectly well what the City of Brass was, of course, he'd been raised on stories of the place for much of his life. Azim-al-Aziz, his grandfather's friend and ally during the Second World War, had been a prince of the City of Brass, an efreet kidnapped by Nazi sorcery and held in their clutches before being rescued by the Liberty League. It was supposed to be a wonderful, magical place where the Arabian Nights had never ended, a place where a thousand wonders lay just beyond the veil. But he'd never visited there himself; his grandfather had passed on a warning that with the end of the Second World War, Azim-al-Aziz had encouraged his people to seal up their dimension to make sure they could never be taken against their will again. That also meant they didn't visit Earth much anymore. With the issue still nagging at him as he sat in his dorm room, Mark had decided to phone a friend. That's what friends were for, wasn't it? As his cell rang, the rain outside stopped. Maybe today was going to be a good day after all.

Mark and Phantom talk summoning

"That sounds like an excellent idea," agreed Jack, who was getting quite a vigorous reaction from the little flier he'd pulled off Stesha. Denied his toy, the little guy had begun to hiss and yelp, pointy teeth making him look like the saddest batboy of all. Shifting around a bit, Jack reluctantly deposited the small creature on his own shoulder. His new buddy immediately clung there like a little gargoyle, clinging almost painfully to Jack's shoulder. "Ow. Yeah, isn't it nicer up there?"

"_I_ like taco pizza," said Jack irritably before editing his order the way Stesha wanted. Secretly, he was glad of it; it meant he'd have an excuse not to eat. When he'd ordered a meat lovers, a veggie lovers, a cheese lovers, and two pepperoni, he hung up and headed for the TV. "No cartoons, but we do have the cartoon network. And Discovery, if they're into that." He wasn't sure why little kids would like science shows, but then Jack hadn't watched that stuff in years. "Uh, they might have a kid's show on Nickelodeon." At the sight of Stesha being mauled by the hair, Jack reached over and scooped up the winged thing by the scruff of the neck. "Hey! You don't want that! She's not pizza!"

"You do know how to handle me," Jack agreed with a wicked smile on his face. The two of them spent a very pleasant evening together after that, one that chased away fears of Claudia and Dracula both for a little while. How could anything that felt so good be a bad idea, anyway? Surely they could handle anything together; even the Prince of Darkness himself.

"Okay, sure," said Jack, trying to stay useful as he headed for the phone. He'd never bothered to take the local Casa del Pizza off the little list of numbers that came with his phone, and used that to call up. "Five Supremes," he guessed over the phone. "With all the taco fixings." Despite his Italian heritage, Jack had never grown up with a particular investment in 'quality' pizza. "And try not to let them eat the place before the guy gets here!" he called.

"I'm sure that would have gone over well," said Jack with a little smile. "Not that she has any grounds for jealousy after the way we parted." He leaned close and kissed her, his hands going on hers. "I'm yours now, not hers. You don't need to have any worries on that score. And as for You-Know-Who...well, we'll deal with that. I doubt even he would come to Freedom City now, not with the League so powerful," he said hopefully.

"Rent, hell," commented Jack, walking over to peer down uncertainly at the little girl-thing in Taylor's grip. At his approach, the girl smiled ingenuously, her eyes turning an odd yellowish-red like a cat's in the light. "I own the place." He smiled at the little girl-thing, reaching down to pet its head. Definitely not human, but it sure did look that way. "Well, this is an interesting way of spending the afternoon. Where do they need to go?"

"Well, yes," said Jack with a little shrug. "That's natural for his..." He caught Taylor's eye and hrmed. "Um, moving on, Claudia certainly has no issues with commingling her blood with human herself, no more so than the, than Dracula does himself. It's because you're a superhero that's the problem. If I'm dominating you, if I'm in the process of converting your soul to darkness, that's one thing. That's what our relations at high levels are supposed to be about. But if it's going the other way, or seen to go the other way...well, that's a sign that I'm corrupting myself by bedding the worst enemies of our people. Or who they think is the worst enemies of our people anyway."

Jack was up and on his feet when he overhead Taylor teleport in, but as he opened the bedroom door he fell dead silent at the sight of the tiny little creatures running around Taylor and Stesha's feet, not to mention the sudden eruption of grapevines all over his expensive coffee table. "Taylor?" he asked, a little uncertainly, "what's going on?" Fresh out of the shower, he was in just his jeans and a T-shirt.

"Oh my God," said Jack, looking appalled as he dropped back onto the couch. Taylor had seen him white-faced before, but this was something else. "Did she say when He was coming?" he asked, still looking faintly stunned. "Is He already on his way?" He ran his hand through his thick black hair. "Maybe it's just an idle threat," he said hopefully. "Claudia always did love playing up our connection to the Dragon. Especially hers. Maybe she's just trying to scare me."

I'm waiting for everyone else's attack as per the coordinated attack rules, I'm just describing it now.

"Blonde vampire?" asked Jack, concern sharp in his voice as he set his cup down hard enough to slosh slightly onto the table. "Short with old-fashioned hair, likes to hiss and use lots of fancy words when she's mad?" He muttered a bad word. "Claudia. I'd heard she'd made it back into the city after her unceremonious departure."

With his girlfriend out of the apartment for school, Jack was doing what most unemployed dropouts did at this time of night: consuming the blood of the living while plotting the overthrow of human civilization. Well, of a small portion of human civilization, anyway. If the Dusk-to-Dawn C's kept operating in the cemeteries of the West Side, eventually they were going to stumble into a nest of angry young turks who would probably object violently to their territory being violated. But if Avenger went in and chased them out, he could take care of everything. Drinking from the open coffee cup he used when Taylor wasn't around, he hmmed as he made a few ticks on his big map of the city spread out on the coffee table, plotting out where he'd be going in a couple of nights.

It does seem like if we're going to allow the one, we should allow the other.

"You think I can control my grandsire's will?" Claudia hissed back. "I was here when he came before, woman. I know the carnage it meant for human and vampire alike. You think that because I lack Jack's scruples I have no feelings? I have no wish to see our children burning in their beds, or yours turned to feedstock. But when the Dragon learns that his blood has taken this city, and that his blood is commingled with the living? With the ridiculous joke that is the superhuman? The holocaust will burn the sky and fill the streets with blood!"

I guess the demon lord doesn't have the soul for dancing!

Mark leaped up from behind the car and yelled weakly "Friends to the end! Friends to the..." He looked around at the holocaust all around him, up at the terrible demon lord before him, and called on his family memories. "You think you can take Freedom City?!" he called up at the huge demon lord. "Buddy, who _are_ you, anyway? You're just some no-account fallen angel who needed his kid to do all the heavy lifting! You're no Hades! You're no Omega! You're just a big bully who likes picking on people smaller than he is, and all you can do is fight teenagers! When this day is over, no one here is even going to remember your NAME!" And with that, Mark leaped up on the car he'd vacated earlier. "And you know what else? LOW BRIDGE!" At his words, a massive flying fortress full of the demonic horde suddenly spun on a wild gyre and went spiraling towards their leader's head!

"Yes yes yes," said Claudia with a waggle of her fingers, for all that her hand had twitched for her collar when Taylor's magic had flared, "you are the guardian of darkness and the light, empowered by arcane magics I could never possibly understand. I've heard that before. From all I've heard, Jack seems to think you're human enough." Once again, the dead eyes were lasers. "You people murder us in our beds and you wonder why your being in Jack's is a problem? Do you have _any_ idea of the holocaust the superheroes of the world have inflicted on us? And you take one of us to bed," she spat. "It's disgusting. And _I_ am the least of your worries, woman. This is no mere usurpation; this is blasphemy that attracts the powerful. For the Dragon has walked the streets of this city before, and you well remember what came afterwards."

"When they come to kill Jack, which they will as soon as they think they can do it without bringing your kind down on our heads, the fight will rip the city's underworld in half." She obviously wasn't talking about organized crime. "Vampires will die. Their families will die. Their allies will die. Innocent bystanders will die, screaming. Kill us all in our beds, as is the style of your kind, and more will simply fill the space. I would think you would know something about the dangers of crossing the line between the human and the inhuman. Guardian of boundaries indeed." She put her hand over her dead heart. "Did he play the troubled boy with you, the damaged young thing who only needed a tender heart? All the dead boys can all do that, Taylor."